East of Eden
by Penrose Quinn
Summary: Some days burn a little slower than most and maybe a few seconds can stretch on in a span of years. Barely together, but forever likes to leave a mark on broken things about what could have been and what could never be. Nothing hurts like a bitch than longing. Some short shared moments in-between. [If they met earlier before the events in Jupiter Jazz. Nonlinear timeline. AU.]
1. monochrome blues

i.

monochrome blues

* * *

It was just a dream, Faye thinks. Just a hazy fever dream.

In the darkness of one room, nothing retains its colors; everything's in washed-out blues and indigos, flickering yellow bleeps, and cold shadows against the pale skin of her fingers, and yet it's all warm and humid, heady with the dizzying scent of burn-out cigarettes and something dark and bittersweet like bourbon. It's on her tongue, the bourbon, the burning—almost like ember, the searing throes of it from the kiss of another, whoever, whatever. _Just a dream._

Her mind's in a hot-wired stupor, eyes indecisive; there's no stark metal from a ship, no leather couch and no rattling plugs and pipes on the walls—just a room, midnight shadows draped in sinful satin, and all this soft supple blue on a desk, on an old piano, on these sheets that can never be called home, and she's a little lost over all. Her memories are a blur, always been, but she doesn't really want to wake up yet and there's a blot surfacing from the smoke in her eyes. A color, a shape—a figure that's so terribly familiar, next to her. And then there's a gentle hand on her hair.

Faye reaches for a crooked cigarette from a nearby ashtray and places it between her lips before he could attempt to kiss her. She smirks a little. He smiles, half amused, half knowing—all-knowing, as if there's nothing to hide from him.

Faye feels a bit drunk from that smile; there's the bourbon, the vodka, and it must've sounded sappy as hell, but she really is, like finding something so genuine underneath the gutter. But she wouldn't even care to admit it, not to him, not even to herself. However he must have known already; he's sharp like that, sharp as whip and clever with a smile. Charmingly gullible too, for falling for her. Its affections like his that can make any man stupid—but somehow, he's not.

And she's still wondering: "what's your name?"

His brow arches in disbelief. "How drunk are you?" he asks this musing aloud, but it's the subtler tones of concern that's got her attention. "You said you can take a few more drinks."

Faye shrugs unabashedly, just when she takes a slow drag of her cigarette. "Humor me," she says, the taste of harsh tobacco sobering her musings. _Coping_ , he'd sometimes like to call it, because nights in Callisto are cold and pensive and everyone craves for the burn that's nearly impossible to have. For awhile, she realizes he doesn't have a hearth—who does nowadays?—just a grumbling heater, thick wool blankets, and the warmth of vodka from the seam of his mouth.

There's a flash of hot-white tracks, the guttural roar of a speeding car echoing distantly—faintly, like a hiss, and it's gripping his stare to the window, the only one he ever has, all barred and drawn by musty curtains. Right now, he's a vision in ultramarine, striped in white, and it's like gazing in a dream; pretty, silvery, and impermanent. Can anyone blame her if she gives in to the unacknowledged whim to clutch him by the wrist and cuff him down, just before he disappears?

Her hand traces his jaw, ruminating if it's all just a hoax and gossamer, because her life's been nothing but that: _unreal_. Faye might as well be drifting too, something ethereal like nicotine smoke, slipping and sighing, in and out, but she doesn't want him to be like that—and that, maybe, this time, he's real, and he's here with her, so achingly soft from the pads of her fingers. She leans forward, pushing out the hair from his brows. So he has blue eyes. Gorgeous blue eyes.

Oh, she remembers this: this sweet angle, this closeness, this scent—all him, if only there's a name to pin it with. Just a name to stick on her tongue. "Humor me," she murmurs, forgetting her cigarette, lips locking, mingling, as with words unspoken. _Stay with me._

" _Faye,_ " it's the very the rhythm of it that makes it intimate, slow and smooth-sounding. He might as well make it into a song. Some personal tune to play for a night. He's a little breathless as she is, a little feverish from her hands wound behind his neck. "How about," a small lilt curls the corner of his mouth, "I help you remember instead?" such a tease; not even sparing a clue, a syllable, or a sound about his name.

There's no use acting coy. They're already blatantly sprawled on his bed, flushed and anticipating. "And how do you intend to do that?"

"Trust me."

There's that flicker in his eyes, but its hideous shadow lies atop hers. Nothing hopeful or beautiful like that—it's only an innate reaction, past inclinations and intuitions that's left her the worst kind of cynic in the latter half of the decade. Her lips twist wryly. "You sure you can ask for something like that," a tentative drawl, razor-sharp to the ear, but really, it's porcelain, and at some point, it's meant to shatter, "from me?"

Hovering above her, he doesn't wince. So easy to embrace everything, that's always been him; Faye _doesn't_ get it, though perhaps she can love him for that, love him to the moon, just for being the one odd thing that she can never be. "Why not," he shrugs, tilting his head. "I do."

 _You shouldn't._ Faye kisses him anyway, thinking she's got him fooled. But, to be honest, aren't they all fools?

Her fingers are grappling on his broad shoulders, on the silky fabric of his shirt—all this time, he's still dressed? That doesn't hinder her, when she snakes her hand from the inviting dip of his collar and unbuttons. He stops her there, with a hand curled around her wrist. It's a delicate hold, despite the rough calluses on his palms.

Her brows furrow. "You know it doesn't bother me," the abnormal appendages on his chest, his womanly body; she's seen it before, disturbed her _before_. Faye doesn't care what deformities he has. She wants to touch him. "You don't have to hide."

Her response is met with anxious silence, and his mouth only lowers to her knuckles for an apologetic peck. "Another time, I promise," he whispers gently. She hates him for being like that, too selfishly giving. "This is just for you," he kisses her finger, lips lingering, "let me surprise you."

Faye sighs under her breath, quirking slyly one side of her mouth. "What haven't you done that I don't know?"

He only smiles.

It's a slow dance. Even though Faye believes that the metaphor is overused to the point of frustration, it's quite fitting this time, especially when it starts with the grace of his hand, the movement unhurried and effortless as it slides down, down _deep_ between her legs. She gasps at the heat, the hot tongue that sweeps at her mouth, failing to sigh when she's smothered, moaning, melting seamlessly, from his fingertips, from the dark hair damply sticking against his neck, threaded through by her clenched hands; grasping at the ends, grazing winding roads at the length of his spine, because she's lost in between a delirious high and the sinking depths of his eyes.

Distractedly, it's like staring at an ocean—from some rare crevice in the universe, where the light's filtering through deep waters, and it's a world of wistful caresses and wide embraces that's enough to leave you yearning to drown. Drowning, flailing, utterly breathless beneath an almost-bliss, because he's the one all over her, ebbing away with lips trailing on the skin of her throat, the valley between her breasts, her navel—her hips, rolling in the rhythm of _please, go on and on and oh._

Here she is, contemplating if this is how he serenades her. Legs propped on his shoulders, thighs pressed on his cheeks, his lips smoldering against her very molten core. He must be grinning, with a drawn breath and a languid lick that makes her whole body shudder and ache and catch on fire.

And Faye's panting out a laugh—or a sob, because in the midst of all this, she's searching for a name; something to sink into and latch on from the roof of her mouth. But deep down, she knows she's holding it in too, bitterly tasting the ashes from her teeth, because of how it simply equates to complications and debts in-between.

Names mean forever. A memento to cling onto, a tether that's smugly knows how it's bound her there in place because the memory's going to last for years, brand on her soul maybe, like a blue requiem—a strange lilting tune, from her ear, her lips. Nothing cures stubborn sentiment.

Then the tide comes, finally, _finally_ —though everything else is filmed over, all shades of deep-sea blue and pale glimpses and . . . a ghost of a smile. Where is he? It stirs her from her chest and Faye damns how her arms are as heavy as lead and how she's going blind, nearly blacking out, because despite it all, she's still desperate to hang onto some unsung past, to pine for those arms around her while she's asleep, because he's fading out, leaving first thing in the morning with all the somber finality in his eyes. _Stay. Dammit, just stay._

His voice is softer now, barely a whisper.

" _Go on. Say it."_

Faye wakes up alone. There's a name on her mouth, but it's still just a dream.

* * *

 **A/N:** I adore this anime to death! It broke me into pieces, you see, and I'm in need of an outlet. So, anyone in for a crack ship?

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Cowboy Bebop.**


	2. mood indigo

ii.

mood indigo

* * *

The first time Gren lets her stay in his apartment, she calls him selfish.

Gren laughs at that, one slightly tinged with irony.

It was one of those slow uneventful days in Callisto, Gren reminisces. There's the people retiring back from the grinder, the crooked city in gaslights, and the easy swing of music in Rester House, but even then he remembers her when he feels like he's losing himself on _Julia_ from his sax. Faye calls him out for nonchalantly accepting strangers in his abode, and he does the same, that she followed after him.

Faye stays anyway, night after night, stuck in the stagnancy of her habits and brooding reflections. _That's her rhythm_ , he thinks. Dancing alone in an endless tune, breaking off-key every now and then in sporadic bursts of percussion; action, derring-do, a whip of a gun, she's a true femme fetale meant for the blaze.

However the somber notes come in, the solo of a piano, and Faye's walking in these frost-coated streets, finding consolation in nicotine and the dying smoke of a memory—or perhaps, not quite a memory at all, because there's nothing reminiscent in her eyes, just longing. And then she flits up that liquid smile, all chapped red lips and misty sighs.

 _I'm a tough girl, you know_ , Faye says this, half thinking she means it, half in unvoiced denial. Sometimes, Gren's wondering if she's expecting him to contradict her words, but he doesn't and wordlessly lends her his coat instead because the chill's getting to her. She's always reckless like that; strutting out in the brazen image of confidence, despite her quivering inside.

It never helps when they're out alone, drinking in local pubs, talking for hours, stumbling in a room—the couch, the wall, whatever. It's freezing in these long late hours, and there's always going to be a pair of lost souls desperately begging for warmth. Gren fancies her as a companion—even though, she's quick to berate and mock him for it—and honestly, it cures the solitude, even just a smidgen.

Gren stares at the roasted beans from a strainer, the scent pungent on his nostrils, and lets his mind swim within that dark brew; a striking contrast from the pale fluorescent lights of his kitchen counter. It's a pricy import, coffee. Instant or not, a lot of the people here like to call it a cup of kohv because the beans are expensive, the taste is shit, and it's addicting. They say a splash of alcohol makes it better, maybe with some rare additive like spice sugar, but he can't tell if he's impressed. However it's scalding on his tongue, and for awhile, he relishes the deliberate burn because it keeps him awake—and absentmindedly, alive.

Barefoot and in a daze, Gren walks away with two mugs of kohv. He can feel the side of his lips twitch. Faye's a lovely contradiction, sometimes; straying out for days, constantly alluding about her leaving for good, but finding herself returning in his apartment in the darkest hour in the morning, on his couch, wearing one of his shirts, sneezing.

"Morning," Gren places the mugs on the table and sits on the floor, resting his back on the couch. Not minding how his hair brushes against her bare thighs, Faye replies back. It's more of a tired grumble than a proper greeting. "Rough night?"

"You have no idea," she utters out exasperatedly after reaching out for the mug to take in a whiff. Her nose wrinkles. "You know I hate this stuff."

Gren shrugs, lolling his head to the side. "You still drink it."

The mug's returned back on the table, empty. Gren smiles, but it dies in an instant, when he finds himself staring numbly on the ceiling. He catches the scent of her perfume and a freshly lit cigarette, ghosting around them like dream cloud.

"I think you're right," he tells her absentmindedly. "I am selfish."

Maybe, Faye sounds a little cruel when she says it, a little despondent from the bite in her tone. "Who isn't?"

However Gren always finds himself swerving at the thought, reshaping the words into a hopeful star. _Not all._ Though silently, some part of him laments too, when there's all this sand in his eyes and those long stretches of desert waste from the distant horizon. He chuckles under his breath, but it comes out more like a cry. _But is there at all?_

And then there's the ceiling, and then there's Faye, but there'll always be that howling gust in his ears, a chorus of bullets singing in the wind, painting the world red and rotten, until all that's fluting in his sound is the old jail blues. Gren sinks his head deeper on the couch, searching for temporary escape in the caustic taste of her cigarette and smokes away.

Gren's never expecting a lover's affection in her. Faye's too hardened for that, all sharp ends and dangerous curves and closelipped smiles; a blood diamond. However there's something unspeakably soft in the manner she touches him, some semblance between an apology and indulgence, when her fingers rake through his hair. Leaning back, he breathes out and idly watches the smoke unfurl from his mouth, tasting lipstick and gunpowder.

"Your coffee's getting cold."

"I don't care," he really doesn't and she doesn't, either.

Sighing under his breath, Gren leans onto her hand, surrenders from the caress. It's grace, he believes. Short-lived mercy. Happiness. His lips move to kiss the skin of her palm, and while they press there, everything tangible and physical and warm, he finds himself _pining_. Feeling as if the sentiment can never go away, of how fleeting this is, of what they have, and he just begs this to last.

He looks at her, she looks at him, and it's hopeless, but maybe he could love her.

 _I'm selfish. I'm too selfish._

To ache so much, to die for it.

His mouth twist crookedly from the thought.

 _And look where it's led me._

Gren finds the will to stand up, but leaves a kiss on her wrist first before he does. His feet are cold against cool wood, as he pads heavily back to his room, like a ghost in chains. It's easier when he dresses up, thinking he's prepping up for a solo act up on stage and the red light's flashing on his face—and that there's no crowd, no applause, just him and his saxophone and the guilty notes of a convict. Rather than an instrument, he picks up a tight-locked brief case and leaves. There's no music in his steps; only the dull beat, the footfalls, the static, almost driving him to tears.

And then a voice saves him from all the white noise. A voice—a song, he wants to listen to, always.

It's her casual obliviousness that wrenches him inside. "Hm, you're going out?"

Their eyes don't meet. Gren doesn't make a sound, but he nods and weakly quirks up the corner of his lip. When he's just at the door, deciding to open his mouth, he sincerely hopes it doesn't sound as final as it should.

"Take care, fairy."


End file.
